Putting together this list was much harder than I expected. As someone who listens to a pretty wide range of music, I have always found corporate indie pop-rock to be one of the most frustrating genres imaginable because so much of it sounds engineered to be universally inoffensive instead of driven by genuine artistic intent. Between the endless hand-claps and “woo-ooh-oh” refrains, it is obvious that Grouplove — currently consisting of lead vocalists Christian Zucconi and Hannah Hooper, lead guitarist Andrew Wessen, bassist Daniel Gleason and drummer Benjamin Homola — is trapped in the sonic amber of the early 2010s indie-pop boom. But buried beneath all of that hyperactive, Tumblr-era optimism are flashes of genuine vulnerability, infectious hooks and bittersweetly straightforward lyrics that give the band’s chaotic sound far more character and sincerity than I first expected.
That is not to say Grouplove is secretly some massively misunderstood band. Everyone at Dartmouth has already heard their song “Tongue Tied” roughly a thousand times, and I know a lot of people (myself included) were not exactly thrilled when the band was announced for Green Key. But after spending way too much time with their catalog, I do think there is more to Grouplove than the corny indie-pop reputation that follows them around. These are the 10 songs I think are genuinely worth giving a chance — either because they will probably make an appearance at Green Key or because they are hidden gems buried in the band’s aggressively enthusiastic discography.
1. “Itchin’ on a Photograph”
Sounding like it was scientifically engineered in a lab to soundtrack a 2011 iPod Touch commercial, “Itchin’ on a Photograph” — the opening track on Grouplove’s debut album “Never Trust a Happy Song” — contains basically every stereotypical early-2010’s indie-pop trait imaginable. And yet, somehow, it is still absolutely exhilarating. Zucconi’s raspy vocals inject just enough grit and urgency into the song to elevate it beyond glossy indie-pop artificiality, making it one of the band’s most memorable listens.
2. “Borderlines and Aliens”
Coming from their sophomore album “Spreading Rumors,” “Borderlines and Aliens” feels like Grouplove’s attempt to move away from the made-for-radio sound of their debut into something messier and more exciting. The song begins with an immediately recognizable guitar pattern before eventually spiraling into a frenzied finale with some seriously impressive shredding. The repeated “ari-ari-ari-gato” hook is stupidly catchy in exactly the way a pop hook is meant to be. Since the song has shown up at basically every recent Grouplove concert, there is a very high chance it becomes one of the loudest sing-alongs at Green Key.
3. “Do You Love Someone”
“Do You Love Someone” comes from Grouplove’s third album, “Big Mess,” which feels like the one album from the Los Angeles-based band that consistently flirts with greatness without ever really getting there. Still, this track probably comes the closest. The inquisitive hook of “Do you love someone?” feels strikingly similar to Dayglow’s “Can I Call You Tonight?” — another modern indie anthem, performed at Dartmouth during Fallapalooza this past fall. If anything, this song should have been Grouplove’s biggest hit, as it feels like the closest they have ever gotten to making a fully realized pop-rock classic.
4. “Raspberry”
“Raspberry on the ferry” is a terribly great lyric — it is as nonsensical as it is impossible not to yell along to. “Raspberry” sounds like Grouplove attempting to make a noisy Sonic Youth song while still clinging to their sunnier indie-pop instincts. The guitars feel scrappier and more abrasive than a lot of the band’s other material, allowing the song to achieve the kind of summery, high-energy rush Grouplove seems to spend most of their discography trying to manufacture.
5. “Betty’s a Bombshell”
This is probably my favorite Grouplove song because it tones down almost everything I dislike about them. Instead of sounding like a Lumineers song exploded inside a Forever 21, “Betty’s a Bombshell” carries a much more restrained and weirdly specific style. The song’s storytelling and framing almost feel reminiscent of a John Mellencamp track, while lines like “for the faster you let go you will receive what you need” give the song a worn-out sense of longing that a lot of Grouplove songs lack. Zucconi and Hooper’s harmonies also sound genuinely beautiful here. Unfortunately, this is probably one of the least likely songs on this list to actually get played at Green Key due to its lack of popularity.
6. “Just What You Want (feat. Surfbort)”
Although Grouplove’s 2021 album “This Is This” is honestly a mess, “Just What You Want” works very well. Featuring the punk band Surfbort, the track leans much harder into distorted guitars and pounding drums than the band’s more sugary indie-pop norm. While it still has the in-your-face hook Grouplove always falls back on, here it actually feels rightfully aggressive. This is probably the closest the band has ever gotten to sounding genuinely cool.
7. “Colours”
“Colours” clearly sounds like it was created in 2011, which is both its biggest strength and biggest weakness. I personally find the song generic and annoying, but there’s no denying how effective it is at doing exactly what it sets out to do. The track is absolutely riddled with “hoo-hah”s, “man-man-man-man”s and “ah-ah”s if you are into that kind of over-the-top scat-singing.
8. “Cheese”
I would never have expected a song called “Cheese” to emotionally affect me, yet here I am. Coming from Grouplove’s latest album, “I Want It All Right Now,” the track is noticeably heavier and more lyrically grounded than the band’s earlier work without completely abandoning the bright, chaotic energy that first made them popular. The band said the song was inspired by the feeling of trying to preserve moments through photographs (saying “cheese”), which makes lines like “Stay close to the cheese; stay close to the memories” come across as poetically sincere. “Cheese” feels like proof that Grouplove has aged at least somewhat more gracefully than a lot of their indie-pop peers and is truly a worthwhile listen.
9. “Deleter”
One of Grouplove’s more recent popular songs, “Deleter” has become a staple of the band’s live shows for good reason. It is an angsty pandemic-era alt-pop song that sounds like a rip-off of a Wallows song, which, in my opinion, makes it significantly more listenable than a lot of the band’s other material. The lyrics are emotionally ambiguous in a way that still feels existentially effective (“We’ve been here for too long”), and Zucconi’s vocals are especially fun here. At the end of the day, even I cannot resist a good “na-na-na-na-na-na-na.”
10. “Back in the 90’s”
I somehow made it this far in life without realizing the same people who made “Tongue Tied” also made the theme song for “BoJack Horseman,” which instantly became the most interesting thing about Grouplove to me. “Back in the 90’s” exists in a space that I genuinely think the band should lean into more often: bittersweet, sardonic and vaguely depressing. Despite only being 44 seconds long, the song cuts through the group’s usual free-love indie optimism with something much more biting. “Back in the 90s, I was in a very famous TV show” is not only an unbelievably iconic opening lyric for a television theme song, but also proof that some of Grouplove’s most interesting songs are the ones hiding furthest away from the version of the band most people think they already know.
The more time I spent with Grouplove’s music, the more I began to admire the very thing that makes people roll their eyes at them in the first place: their refusal to feel embarrassed by their own optimism. For a band I expected to find almost entirely exhausting, their catalog ended up feeling surprisingly human, and I respect the hell out of that. You won’t see me tongue-tied on Saturday when these songs get played.
